Rediscovering Nashik, thanks to Maharashtra’s eco-glamping initiative

We usually tend to overlook things that are right around us. Born and brought up in Mumbai, I have visited Nashik in Maharashtra several times. For work assignments, to chill with my family in a rented bungalow, and to check out one of the city’s wellness resorts. But, in all these times, I never explored the city, its culture, built heritage or its natural life.

 

If not for Maharashtra Tourism’s first riverside eco-glamping initiative, which continues until April 18, I probably would never have.

 

Almost three hours after starting from Mumba by road, I reached a narrow road lined with pretty, one-storey bungalows, mostly holiday homes. Their big gates were covered in bright pink bougainvillaea flowers. Right at the end of the lane, there was the eco-glamping site with its towering bamboo gates. Quite liked that touch, and 59 tents and four pods pitched opposite the serene backwaters of the Gangapur dam. 

 

Eco-glamping has been one of the more popular trends in domestic travel since Covid-19. Travellers like it for the comforts of an air-conditioned tent, big enough to fit in a bed, a dresser and an attached bathroom, pitched amidst nature, where there is either no or limited access to hotels. Even the Madhya Pradesh and Odisha governments have launched such initiatives in the last few years, mainly targeted to domestic travellers looking for a quick break. Once the project ends, the tents are dismantled, leaving the site as it was. 

 

The highlight of Nashik’s camp is the backwater and its many egrets and ducks that fly across the river while you settle in for a wildlife photography workshop with Hiren Khatri. He is a naturalist from Nashik and has travelled across India to capture wildlife, including the red pandas of northeast India. He shows us spectacular pictures of tigers, elephants and insects he has shot over the years while making the basic principles of photography shutter speed, focus and aperture more palatable. Bring out that DSLR. I am finally ready to shoot with it. 

 

As the evening descended and it became cooler, it was time to head out for a heritage walk of Nashik city, about an hour’s drive away from the camp. The name ‘Nashik’ derives from the Sanskrit word nāsikā, meaning nose. According to the Hindu epic Ramayan, Nashik is where Lakshman cut off the nose of Shurpanakha, Ravana's sister, explains Ulka Pawar, our guide.

 

We then walk into some of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city to see the wadas, buildings made during the rule of Maharashtrian Peshwas, from 1751 to the early 1800s. Wadas were designed to accommodate large families and drew inspiration from Mughal, Rajasthani, and Gujarati architectural styles. Wadas are typically rectangular with a central courtyard, surrounded by two to three-storey buildings. These structures are a testimony to the city’s glorious past but are in urgent need of conservation. As the city speeds towards modern living, these old buildings crumble away.

 

My trip back in time continued the next day with a visit to the Pandav Leni caves also known as the Nashik Caves or the Trirashmi Caves. It’s a complex of 24, superbly conserved, rock-cut caves that date back to 1st to 6th Century BCE.  

Tourism